ARISTOTLE - The Works of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

 The Works of Aristotle:

Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomachea),

Book V


Quotes for Discussion


Now men pray for and pursue these things; but they should not, but should pray that the things that are good absolutely may also be good for them, and should choose the things that are good for them. The unjust man does not always choose the greater, but also the less – in the case of things bad absolutely; but because the lesser evil is itself thought to be in a sense good and graspingness is directed at the good, therefore he is thought to be grasping. And he is unfair; for this contains and is common to both.
The Works of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomachea), Book V, #1, Great Books Volume 9, pg 376

And the law bids us do both the acts of a brave man (e.g. not to desert nor post nor take to flight nor throw away our arms), and those of a temperate man (e.g. not to commit adultery nor to gratify one’s lust) and those of a good-tempered man (e.g. not to strike another nor to speak evil), and similarly with regard to the other virtues and forms of wickedness, commanding some acts and forbidding others; and the rightly framed law does this rightly, and the hastily conceived one less well. This form of justice, then, is complete virtue, but not absolutely, but in relation to our neighbour.
The Works of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomachea), Book V, #1, Great Books Volume 9, pg 377

Further, this is plain from the fact that awards should be according to merit’; for all men agree that what is just in distribution must be according to merit in some sense, though they do not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with the status of freeman, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or with noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.
The Works of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomachea), Book V, #3, Great Books Volume 9, pg 378

For it makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man or a bad man a good one, nor whether it is a good or a bad man that has committed adultery; the law looks only to the distinctive character of the injury, and treats the parties as equal, if one is in the wrong and the other is being wronged, and if one inflicted injury and the other has received it. Therefore, this kind of injustice being an inequality, the judge tries to equalize it; for in the case also in which one has received and thither has inflicted a wound, or one has slain and the other has been slain, the suffering and the action have been unequally distributed; but the judge tried to equalize by means of the penalty, taking away from the gain of the assailant.
The Works of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomachea), Book V, #4, Great Books Volume 9, pg 378

All goods must therefore be measured by some one thing, as we said before. Now this unit is in truth demand, which holds all things together (for it men did not need one another’s good at all, or did not need them equally, there would be either no exchange or not the same exchange); but money has become by convention a sort of representative of demand; and this is why it has the name ‘money’ because it exists not by nature but by law and it is in our power to change it and make it useless.
The Works of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomachea), Book V, #5, Great Books Volume 9, pg 381

There must then be a unit, and that fixed by agreement (for which reason it is called money); for it is this that makes all things commensurate, since all things are measured by money. Let A be a house, B ten minae, C a bed. A is half of B, if the house is worth five minae or equal to them; the bed, C, is a tenth of B; it is plain, then, how many beds are equal to a house, viz. five.
The Works of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomachea), Book V, #5, Great Books Volume 9, pg 381

… the law does not expressly permit suicide, and what it does not expressly permit, it forbids.
The Works of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomachea), Book V, #11, Great Books Volume 9, pg 386

Vocabulary

The Works of Artistotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Great Books Volume 9

Clandestine, pg 378

adj. Kept or done in secret, often in order to conceal an illicit or improper purpose.

Viz., pg 381

also rendered viz without a full stop) and the adverb videlicet are used as synonyms for "namely", "that is to say", and "as follows".